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palm.
    “No. No, it has nothing to do with you. I don’t know enough about you to be ashamed.” She ducked her head. “You have been kind enough to me.”
    “You are easy to be kind to.”
    “Well, can’t you do one more kindness?” she asked pleadingly. “I’ve never left this room, not since I came North. I’ve tried, but I can’t. Within two steps, I don’t know where I am. I panic. It’s like…It’s like being alone in Hell.” Her voice broke. “I don’t want to be alone.”
    Robert’s vague feelings of rejection evaporated, replaced by a warmth that started in his heart and spread to his whole body, especially the part where her small hand rested. He covered it with his own.
    “You won’t be alone. I promise to never leave your side for a second.” He cupped her face with his other hand, running his thumb soothingly over the damp softness of her cheek. “Let me be your eyes.”
    “And you won’t leave me alone in the dark?” she asked, thinking of that day alone.
    “Never,” he whispered, thinking of tomorrows stretching into eternity.

Chapter Three
    She heard the gathering long before they reached the hall.
    The low murmur of many voices sounded like the roar of a multitude in her mind. She had lived in her isolation for so long that the sound of the people from the Keep and the nearby villages gathered to see her was terrifying. The noise clouded her senses and dislocated her from the world. She moved as if in a dream.
    And the only real thing in her dream world was the man beside her. The warmth from his body seemed to calm the panic that was trying to form a cold knot in her stomach.
    He held her close to his side as if she was made of the finest crystal.
    This gentleness was perhaps the most surprising thing about her warrior. Instead of the exasperation and anger at her panic that she had expected, he had simply lifted her from the floor and looped her arm through his, placing his other warm hand reassuringly over hers.
    She was enclosed entirely in the strength of his almost-embrace.
    He had led her slowly from her sanctuary. It had been only the calm in his deep voice as he had talked softly to her that had given her the courage to take the first step. And the next. But now, in the face of so many others, it wasn’t enough.
    “We are at the door of the main hall now. You’re doing well,” he murmured encouragingly, but even his calmness could no longer still the chaos that suddenly swarmed to life inside her. The strength that had got her to the doors of the hall now fled.
    She felt rooted to the spot with panic.
    “I can hear people. How many people?” Her voice squeaked in rising terror. “There are too many people.”
    He let her hand drop and wrapped his arm around her trembling shoulders, drawing her more tightly into the cocoon of his warmth.
    She lacked the strength to deny the comfort he offered.
    She leaned into his warmth, barely resisting the urge to bury her face in his side. He was strong enough to fight off the world, and for the first time in longer than she cared to remember, momentarily she let someone else’s strength be her own.
    For this one moment, it didn’t seem to matter that he had been sent by her brother or that she scarcely knew him. Instead, she concentrated on the peace that radiated from him. The only thing that mattered was that she could feel the long, muscled length of him as he held her securely. The smell of man and sandalwood that filled her mind was at once calming but also oddly exciting.
    “It’s just the household,” he said soothingly, “and people from the villages near Shadowsend.”
    “It sounds like more.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I’ve been alone too long.”
    For a second his arm tightened around her, subtly forcing her to shift her balance into him more completely or risk falling over. She felt him take a steadying breath of his own.
    “Well, you are no longer alone.”
    He couldn’t explain, even to himself,